[dooodstevenn]

Quote:

that would explain why you were disappointed with the xb500's...lol
 
Remember your only paying $30 to $50 for these headphones, don't expect them to be denon d7000 quality...
 
 
 

yeah i dont expect too much, i was just too impatient to wait for these to burn in for those 100 hrs and just returned them.  but its okay i found a best buy 5 minutes away that have a bunch of xb500's and maybe in a few weeks ill pick them up again depending on what happens with these 600's but if i do ill make sure to burn them in quickly before that 30 day return ends.  but at the same time i am a little skeptical about how much burn in will really change them.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Quote:

I have some htf600's on the way, 30 bucks from amazon so i figured i'd try them to see what all the hype is about, will try to do out of box comparisons because i didnt burn in the xb500's for too long, only about 10 hrs. does anyone know the suggested burn in for the panny's? 

The HTF600 improves a lot with burn-in though, up to around 50hrs or so it will change a lot and go back and forth, it's a crazy ride, people who haven't believed in burn-in have become believers with this headphone so don't necessarily try to base everything on out of box sound.
 
Typical scenarios with HTF600:
 
Out of box, somewhat muffled midrange and bass response, cramped in soundstage
Bass response disappears sometimes in the burn-in process (you'd be suprised how many people report this) and then comes back stronger than ever later on
Mids come more forward & gets more detailed/clearer sounding
Soundstage takes the longest to improve
 
The highs will always remain slightly recessed on these headphones, it's slightly less so than XB500 though, and definitely more even. It's should be more forward and even mids and highs and a bit weaker bass output, especially in the subbass the HTF600 doesn't extend nearly as well (but hardly any headphones do anyway) but still very acceptable.
 
You can get XB500 sounding nice and well balanced with EQing no doubt but it needs quite a lot balancing if you want to get it just about "right", for example I recommended these iTunes settings to a XB500 user earlier today (he also had came to similar settings before seeing mine)
 

 
Listening with settings like these it's hard to justify either HTF600 or M-Audio Q40 I use over them, it's just improves that much and it's the headphone that has benefitted by far the most by EQing of any headphones that I've tried but if you listen clearly you can still hear a headphone that doesn't need any EQing whatsoever will sound better than not having to use a low quality EQ like iTunes 10-band EQ (I normally use my soundcard's EQ which works better if need to EQ). Ofc headphones are more than just frequency balance but that's where I think XB500 does quite well for the price if you just balance it out a bit better as the muffled sound coming from the unbalanced frequency response is by far its biggest weakness.

 

[roker]

Quote:

yeah i dont expect too much, i was just too impatient to wait for these to burn in for those 100 hrs and just returned them.  but its okay i found a best buy 5 minutes away that have a bunch of xb500's and maybe in a few weeks ill pick them up again depending on what happens with these 600's but if i do ill make sure to burn them in quickly before that 30 day return ends.  but at the same time i am a little skeptical about how much burn in will really change them.

they're a single purpose headphone, you're not going to find great flexibility with it and there might even be some duds in it's best genres.
 
I like my XB500s, but they're not an audiophile grade headphone.  They're great for the times that I have a bass thumping song in my head and want to "rock it out" so to speak.  I think what you want is something with bass and better vocal/mids detail.  The V shaped curve (or smile) headphones.

 

[nonsupremous]

I second the XB700 here.  If you're looking for good punchy bass and much more forward mids and highs these are clearly better than the XB500. 

 

[Totally Dubbed]

Quote:

I second the XB700 here.  If you're looking for good punchy bass and much more forward mids and highs these are clearly better than the XB500. 

Disagreed here.
 
XB700's DO NOT have PUNCHY bass, they have extended lows (and are very much present), but certainly not punchy.
If anything the XB500's are more forward.
 
Overall the XB700's are a great set of phones for the price, and I would recommend them for everything, apart from: punchy bass and portability. The latter will be filled by the XB500's role.
 
 
 

 

[JK1]

How do the JVC HAS600 and HAS4x compare to the Sony XB500 and Panasonic RTF600?

 

[nonsupremous]

I guess I just hear them differently, or think punchy is different.  Because I think the XB500's have more booming bass where the XB700 has more punchy bass.  Punchy to me is a tighter hitting with shorter decay.  But hey, I'm not an audiophile, just a guy with a lot of headphones. 

Quote:

Disagreed here.
 
XB700's DO NOT have PUNCHY bass, they have extended lows (and are very much present), but certainly not punchy.
If anything the XB500's are more forward.
 
Overall the XB700's are a great set of phones for the price, and I would recommend them for everything, apart from: punchy bass and portability. The latter will be filled by the XB500's role.
 
 
 

 

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Quote:

I second the XB700 here.  If you're looking for good punchy bass and much more forward mids and highs these are clearly better than the XB500. 

I wouldn't call XB700's bass "punchy", it's focusing on the <100Hz range so it's very deep & soft with a slow decay time. Sure compared to SRH440 or something it could be called called punchy but not versus most other bass focused headphones (At least all headphones I've tried except possibly M50 have punchier bass than XB700). Mids are actually a bit more forward on XB500, huge difference in the lower mids (300 ~ 1kHz) but not so much difference in, about equal there (1 - 4kHz). But highs are definitely more forward on XB700.
 
 
 

 

[Totally Dubbed]

Quote:

I guess I just hear them differently, or think punchy is different.  Because I think the XB500's have more booming bass where the XB700 has more punchy bass.  Punchy to me is a tighter hitting with shorter decay.  But hey, I'm not an audiophile, just a guy with a lot of headphones. 

 
neither am I - I just love buying new earphones, and now headphones !
Everyone's ears are different remember


Quote:

I wouldn't call XB700's bass "punchy", it's focusing on the <100Hz range so it's very deep & soft with a slow decay time. Sure compared to SRH440 or something it could be called called punchy but not versus most other bass focused headphones. Mids are actually a bit more forward on XB500, huge difference in the lower mids (300 ~ 1kHz) but not so much difference in, about equal there (1 - 4kHz). But highs are definitely more forward on XB700.
 

^audiophile response
 
 

 

[Ultimate Audio]

the 500s is much much much better than the ****ty sennheiser,sennheiser dont have a minimum bass response is totaly crap,and depends alot about what source do u have ,if you have a ****ty device like APPLE the xb 500 will sound bad is true.For xb500 you need a good PC...

 

[dooodstevenn]

Quote:

the 500s is much much much better than the ****ty sennheiser,sennheiser dont have a minimum bass response is totaly crap,and depends alot about what source do u have ,if you have a ****ty device like APPLE the xb 500 will sound bad is true.For xb500 you need a good PC...

well everyone has a different ear, i like the bass, but felt the 500's were over brearing and the mids and highs were not up to par, no the sennheisers dont have the bass the 500's do but they still have bass, and good bass too as well as keeping the mids and highs good. and apple vs pc is also purely subjective, i use a pc, but i can still see the appeal of a mac. 

 

[Ultimate Audio]

Quote:

well everyone has a different ear, i like the bass, but felt the 500's were over brearing and the mids and highs were not up to par, no the sennheisers dont have the bass the 500's do but they still have bass, and good bass too as well as keeping the mids and highs good. and apple vs pc is also purely subjective, i use a pc, but i can still see the appeal of a mac. 

well i dont know how the MAC sounds but 100% i know how the Ipod touch sounds and for me is a 5/10 a pretty crap sounding device like all the apple ipods,i have also philips go gear 2011 16gb and sound alot better than any apple 8/10  and i know Sony A series is the best sounding mp3 player of the market today.
 

 

[roker]

I saw the other iTunes equalizer setup in an earlier post and felt you guys might want to give this a shot:
 

 
It keeps the bass but opens up the highs.  This is the only way I can listen to the XB500s without pulling out my hair.

 

[lilkoolaidman]

Quote:

well i dont know how the MAC sounds but 100% i know how the Ipod touch sounds and for me is a 5/10 a pretty crap sounding device like all the apple ipods,i have also philips go gear 2011 16gb and sound alot better than any apple 8/10  and i know Sony A series is the best sounding mp3 player of the market today.
 

Well, all Macs have an optical out, so they'll sound like whatever your DAC sounds like. And iPods have a Line-out-dock so an amp can be used to make an iPod sound great. Personally, I think the only flaw of an iPod is the bass roll-off and thinness, so given that I tried the XB500s out of my iPod's HO (I didn't have my amp with me), to have the XB500s out of an amp would probably make them sound more bassy

Among other things too, but if you don't like a headphone, you can't make it sound like a totally different headphone by changing the source or burning it in. The improvements will be there, but it will still be the same headphone in general.

 

[Ultimate Audio]

i can guarantee you the xb500 whith sony vaio f series sound 70% another headphone than xb500 whith ipod touch,is almost another headphone and is not only the bass,all sound is 70% diferent,the high are better,the mids are better,the bass is alot better 3x maybe,the sound stage is also better whith SRS wow activated+dolby digital on.